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Euro Vision 2018

Submitted by Benefitz Betty on Wed, 2018-04-04 07:59

All the Kings Men ...

Rather than getting all Humpty Dumpty some views over the Bridge:

"... most of Yorkshires rivers were clean and very good fisheries again long before the EU. The exceptions being the River Don and River Aire and their tributaries, which were polluted by industrial waste. However it is debatable how much the EU directive had on cleaning up these rivers, the fact that the polluting industries have all been closed down and moved to the EU or China has had a much bigger effect."

"...The electorate does not agree with them as otherwise the Lib Dems, being the only mainstream party to hold that view, would have formed a government in May last year. It didn’t happen and there has been no “game-changing” event since then to alter public opinion significantly..."

"... on the day we leave, I shall take great pleasure in making a bonfire of that detested blue flag with yellow stars."

Meanwhile tis World Carrot day ;-)

"Malham has long been a honeypot for tourists and its popularity increased still further in January when ITV named the walk from there to Gordale Scar and Janet’s Foss waterfall the third most scenic in Britain. But locals said the scenes on Sunday, when early visitors parked on the brow of the hill leading to the village and others followed, had been unprecedented. Farmer and Malham parish councillor Neil Heseltine, a member of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, said: “It’s nothing new – it has been an issue since the 1950s. “But it was compounded on Sunday by eight to 10 people parking on the brow and causing tailbacks in and out of the village, and also because it was too wet to fill up the overspill car park we have in a field . “It meant the village bus and other vehicles couldn’t get through and in those circumstances, it causes a danger to life.”

Five Reasons Why Maggies Legacy is Alive & Well?

"Thatcher was genetically programmed to prove conclusively that hard work is never fatal... Her concept of limited government is more important than ever... Thatcher maintained governments should be strong enough to do only what no one else can deliver: protection of the realm, the currency and the weak and the upholding of law and order. (ommitting all the 'fantasy' bits btw) ie "Defence underlines the virtue of Thatcher’s doctrine. We must have an economy strong enough to secure the nation’s defences. Because of our economic tribulations over the last 10 years, stemming largely from Labour overspending and unbridled immigration, we remain strapped for defence cash. This is not healthy with Vladimir Putin mining and sapping the West." Blah Blah ..

"Finally, Europe. Here her opponents can argue that she failed comprehensively. True, she solved the British budget problem, helped reform the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) for a time, and signed the Single European Act to try to get a foothold in notably the German and French services sectors.

All this gave the EC, as it then was, the confidence to advance after years of stagnation. Unfortunately, it advanced in entirely the wrong direction: towards a federal Europe. But here Thatcher pointed the way in three respects: her resistance to our ill-fated membership of the ERM until she ran out of political options; her opposition to a single currency and European central bank; and her dire warning in her Bruges speech in 1988 against ever closer union – i.e. the building of a federal United States of Europe. Thatcher paved the way for the Brexit referendum. It is worrying that it took nearly 30 years for her message to strike home..."

"In his recent Spring Statement, Philip Hammond, Osborne’s successor, announced a consultation on the related policy of scrapping 1p and 2p coins. Copper coins now cost more to produce than they are worth and 60 per cent are typically used in just one transaction before being stored at home or even thrown away. But confronted by an incipient “save the penny” campaign, the government retreated the day after Hammond’s announcement.

The idea of a cashless economy can appear utopian, the kind of “blue-sky” policy beloved of Cameron’s erstwhile adviser Steve Hilton. Yet in Sweden this apparent fantasy is close to becoming a reality...

"the UK has become one of the world’s most cashless societies: cash accounts for only 3.9 per cent of all payments by value (compared to 10.7 per cent in the eurozone and 8.1 per cent in the US). For Korski, this is an unambiguously positive trend. One of the benefits of a cashless system, he told Cameron, is significantly reduced crime. In his 2016 book, The Curse of Cash, the Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff disparages paper currency for aiding tax evasion, theft, corruption, terrorism, the drugs trade, human trafficking and the rest of a burgeoning black economy..."

"Beyond purely conservative objections, critics warn that a cashless economy would further marginalise the elderly and the poor (who disproportionately use cash). Korski described this as “incredibly insulting” to pensioners, who are increasingly likely to use cards and mobile phones. “You have to have smart policy for the majority and then various schemes to support the minority.”

"Yet a transformation is underway: all that is solid is melting into air."

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"RYEDALE residents who say their voices have been drowned out by “extremist protestors” opposed to fracking at Kirby Misperton have delivered a 650-signature petition calling for an end to protest camps in the area.

Organisers of the petition say they have “had enough” of the disruption caused by national protestors and the visual blight of the camps, set up outside the Third Energy site.

They handed the petition to Conservative Thirsk and Malton MP - and fracking supporter - Kevin Hollinrake yesterday, calling on “relevant authorities” to evict any remaining protest camps near the site, and to ensure that no new camps are established in future..."

"I know what you’re thinking: how many dodgy foreign leaders are going to accuse the Brits of substance-related disinformation this year? Are these things cheaper in bulk? All I can tell you is that, while artisan greengrocer Gregg Wallace has vaguely conceded his cock-up, artisan foreign secretary Boris Johnson is still trying to style his out in the face of having needlessly handed Russia a propaganda coup. Having previously said that “the guy” at Porton Down had told him there was “no doubt” the novichok nerve agent used in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, was made in Russia, the Foreign Office has had to offer a more nuanced version of the evidential trail.

"Clearly, Boris’s needless overstatement was a gift to troll tsar Putin, whose known modus operandi is to encourage and seed multiple doubts and conspiracy theories about any Russia-related misdeeds until the factual environment is more toxically polluted than one of the reactor ghost towns the Soviets forgot to admit to.

Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador to the UN was channelling former KGB bleeding-heart Putin directly on Thursday, when he posed a plangent inquiry about the Skripal pets. “What happened to these animals? Why doesn’t anyone mention them?” he mentioned, stopping just shy of demanding Ace Ventura be seconded to the OPCW investigation.

"This is some way from a typical case of animal neglect, though for many of Britain’s 5 million armchair Hans Blixes, the pets’ fate will be inexcusable. It should certainly be more than enough for Labour’s Chris Williamson to take his Lord Hawski-Hawski act on Russian TV again. Don’t worry if you missed the Derby North MP’s sombre-suited explanation that the Skripal story was the British government’s “way of diverting attention from their own difficulties over Brexit and economic policy”. It’ll be played on a grateful loop across Russian state media for days – as a way of diverting attention from their own difficulties, funnily enough..."

"“I still hate politicians. My contempt for them is undiminished.” The politicians know this, but they appear to nervous of crossing him. “We cringe and simper around Guido,” Johnson said at the anniversary celebration, “in the pathetic delusion that we may thereby encourage him to be merciful to us.”

Guido does not hate all politicians equally. He is a committed Brexiter: remainers get a particular beating on the Euro Guido pages, where their referendum predictions are vigilantly policed (the same treatment is not applied to Brexit promises). And though Staines insists anything stupid or hypocritical is fair game, he appears to find politicians on the left disproportionately worthy of his opprobrium.

But then it is no secret that his politics are right wing, free market, Thatcherite. At university in Hull in the 1980s he was a member of the Federation of Conservative Students, an organisation so right-wing that it was disbanded by Mrs Thatcher...

"His breakthrough was to see early on just how the alcohol-fuelled gossip and backbiting of Westminster that makes and breaks individual careers could be translated to, and magnified by, the digital blogosphere.

He recognised how the world of the political gang, of in and out, of foolishness and deceit and political manipulation and retribution could have been purposely designed to provide rolling content for the voracious appetite of a news website.

What he created was a cross between a comic and a propaganda machine..."

"Instead it chucks a rock of innuendo into the pool and moves on, always hungry for a new way of entertaining its readers, while confirming their prejudices. Staines might one day be a footnote in the history of democracy, but his purpose has never been to promote its long-term health."

"Sir Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said:

“We’re always hugely impressed away by the amazing ways people choose to celebrate the Tour de Yorkshire and we’re reminding spectators to let us know what they have planned.

That way we can ensure these fantastic installations stand the best chance of getting picked up by the television cameras, and also winning our Land Art and Best Dressed competitions.”